Early maternal care predicts reliance on social learning about food in adult rats

Charlotte M. Lindeyer, Michael J. Meaney, Simon M. Reader

Research output: Contribution to journalArticleAcademicpeer-review

Abstract

Many vertebrates rely extensively on social information, but the value of information produced by other individuals will vary across contexts and habitats. Social learning may thus be optimized by the use of developmental or current cues to determine its likely value. Here, we show that a developmental cue, early maternal care, correlates with social learning propensities in adult rodents. The maternal behavior of rats Rattus norvegicus with their litters was scored over the first 6 days postpartum. Rat dams show consistent individual differences in the rate they lick and groom (LG) pups, allowing them to be categorized as high, low, or mid-LG mothers. The 100-day old male offspring of high and low-LG mothers were given the opportunity to learn food preferences for novel diets from conspecifics that had previously eaten these diets ("demonstrators"). Offspring of high-LG mothers socially learned food preferences, but offspring of low-LG mothers did not. We administered oxytocin to subjects to address the hypothesis that it would increase the propensity for social learning, but there were no detectable effects. Our data raise the possibility that social learning propensities may be both relatively stable throughout life and part of a suite of traits "adaptively programmed" by early developmental experiences. © 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)168-175
Number of pages8
JournalDevelopmental Psychobiology
Volume55
Issue number2
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 1 Mar 2013

Keywords

  • Adaptive programming hypothesis
  • Behavior
  • Development
  • Epigenetic transmission
  • Food preference
  • Maternal care
  • Oxytocin
  • Rat Rattus norvegicus
  • Social learning
  • Stress
  • animal
  • animal behavior
  • article
  • association
  • feeding behavior
  • female
  • food preference
  • learning
  • Long Evans rat
  • male
  • maternal behavior
  • physiology
  • rat
  • social behavior

Fingerprint

Dive into the research topics of 'Early maternal care predicts reliance on social learning about food in adult rats'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

Cite this